Gyrfalcon:Well, part of the problem too is that nowadays EVERYTHING bad that happens to a picked-upon child is de facto "bullying". Whether it's an actual sequence of deliberate incidents by another kid or group of kids meant to humiliate or demean that child...or a one-time episode of random name-calling; parents, teachers, administrators and other kids run shrieking: "IT WAS BULLYING!!!!"

And, there's no longer any attempt to let kids try to solve the problem themselves first. At the first hint of name calling or wedgie-making SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!! which may or may not be warranted. Yes, intervention may be needed--but it may just make things that much worse for the picked-on kid, who is now seen as a weakling who can't even fight his/her own battles. Too many adult anti-bullying efforts seem to use a jackhammer when a scalpel is needed.

A bit like most of our efforts to fix anything really.

It was attitudes like yours, coming from the adult supervisors, that nearly lead me to suicide. A member of the Crips was physically and psychologically beating on a 100 lb 13 year old, me, for two solid years of torture. First in homeroom, then in P-E, then after class, every day of the school year. It only stopped when he was sent to prison for rape and attempted 1rst degree murder.

I was 13, 100 lbs, liked video games, playing football with my friends, going hunting or fishing with my family, etc. He was a 16 year old gang member, ripped head to toe, easily 225 lbs, who just so happened to be a (actually pretty bad) running back for our (very bad) football team. So I went to the adults, most at least attempted to talk to the future murderer out of it, but it of course made it worse. The adults had no tools whatsoever to deal with the situation, something that you seem dead set against remedying. Why? Why does an anti-bullying sentiment offend so many ITGs?

dv-ous:Ironic? Apparently the "Obvious" tag was busy getting beaten up in the locker room.

Those anti-bullying campaigns are fairy-dust. They're completely full of shiat, ignore fundamental aspects of human nature, and are halfheartedly spoonfed to kids who know it's complete BS, by teachers who know it's complete BS.

Best of all, once they're "implemented," the school can't be sued when a kid gets bullied. Or at least they can be used as evidence that the school was not negligent in its duty to combat bullying.

So you see, it's not complete BS, at least not from a risk management and liability avoidance point of view, which is the only point of view that matters to the schools these days.

Dedmon:Gyrfalcon: Well, part of the problem too is that nowadays EVERYTHING bad that happens to a picked-upon child is de facto "bullying". Whether it's an actual sequence of deliberate incidents by another kid or group of kids meant to humiliate or demean that child...or a one-time episode of random name-calling; parents, teachers, administrators and other kids run shrieking: "IT WAS BULLYING!!!!"

And, there's no longer any attempt to let kids try to solve the problem themselves first. At the first hint of name calling or wedgie-making SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!! which may or may not be warranted. Yes, intervention may be needed--but it may just make things that much worse for the picked-on kid, who is now seen as a weakling who can't even fight his/her own battles. Too many adult anti-bullying efforts seem to use a jackhammer when a scalpel is needed.

A bit like most of our efforts to fix anything really.

It was attitudes like yours, coming from the adult supervisors, that nearly lead me to suicide. A member of the Crips was physically and psychologically beating on a 100 lb 13 year old, me, for two solid years of torture. First in homeroom, then in P-E, then after class, every day of the school year. It only stopped when he was sent to prison for rape and attempted 1rst degree murder.

I was 13, 100 lbs, liked video games, playing football with my friends, going hunting or fishing with my family, etc. He was a 16 year old gang member, ripped head to toe, easily 225 lbs, who just so happened to be a (actually pretty bad) running back for our (very bad) football team. So I went to the adults, most at least attempted to talk to the future murderer out of it, but it of course made it worse. The adults had no tools whatsoever to deal with the situation, something that you seem dead set against remedying. Why? Why does an anti-bullying sentiment offend so many ITGs?

I think I know why. They were bullied as kids, and deep down they wish they could have been the bully instead of the bullied. ITG is the perfect place to vent the pent up angst. If however we are all on here saying shame on the bullies, in a bullied self-loathing kind of way, they want to blame the bullied kid.

and may I add, that was a very touching story. I'm sorry the adults in your life failed you.

We've held employers responsible for workplace harassment for decades now. Why are schools not held to the same standard?

Why do we even have different, non-criminal words -- bullying -- when referring to children then when the same situations involving adults would use criminal words -- assault, battery, harassment? If we would just stop pretending that children aren't really human beings we already have a whole slew of tools to deal with these social issues.

/ Plus we should stop forcing children to attend terrible schools in the first place, both to stop "bullying" from happening and to prevent victims from being legally required to face their abusers

cheeseaholic:dv-ous: Ironic? Apparently the "Obvious" tag was busy getting beaten up in the locker room.

Those anti-bullying campaigns are fairy-dust. They're completely full of shiat, ignore fundamental aspects of human nature, and are halfheartedly spoonfed to kids who know it's complete BS, by teachers who know it's complete BS.

Actually, talking to people fighitng, including bullies, works wonderfully. The problem is to get most people who are fighting to talk, you need to take them to the ground and keep them there first. They don't exacty teach that part.

/used to do that to bullies//they seemed to be a lot of persecution complexes among them///they eventually got better, and everyone forgave everyone else

I tried that once. I was on the wrestling team in 8th grade. The terror-of-the-bus didn't know that, and it wasn't obvious because I was a skinny little kid. The bully got off at my stop instead of his and then jumped me thinking I was going to be easy to beat up. Instead I got him in a "cradle" hold and kept him there until he stopped struggling. I then proceeded to tell him as calmly as I could that what he was doing was wrong, that I was sorry for his home situation (which was shiatty), and that I'd even try to be his friend if he'd let me. He apologized, then agreed to get up, shake hands, and go home. Satisfied, I let him up. We shook. He went his way. I went mine.

And then I woke up in the hospital two days later. Seems he had turned around after about half a block, sprinted toward me, leaped into the air, and executed what witnesses said was a karate jump kick worthy of Bruce Lee. I had severe kidney damage and couldn't walk or pee in any color other than red-orange for a week.

So taking them to the ground and talking to them doesn't always work. Or rather, it works better if you don't turn your back on them.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering, he ended up getting arrested and thrown in juvenile hall, which was probably heaven compared to the squallid apartment where he lived with his drugged-out dope-dealer parents. And we never saw him again after that.)

Dedmon:Gyrfalcon: Well, part of the problem too is that nowadays EVERYTHING bad that happens to a picked-upon child is de facto "bullying". Whether it's an actual sequence of deliberate incidents by another kid or group of kids meant to humiliate or demean that child...or a one-time episode of random name-calling; parents, teachers, administrators and other kids run shrieking: "IT WAS BULLYING!!!!"

And, there's no longer any attempt to let kids try to solve the problem themselves first. At the first hint of name calling or wedgie-making SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!! which may or may not be warranted. Yes, intervention may be needed--but it may just make things that much worse for the picked-on kid, who is now seen as a weakling who can't even fight his/her own battles. Too many adult anti-bullying efforts seem to use a jackhammer when a scalpel is needed.

A bit like most of our efforts to fix anything really.

It was attitudes like yours, coming from the adult supervisors, that nearly lead me to suicide. A member of the Crips was physically and psychologically beating on a 100 lb 13 year old, me, for two solid years of torture. First in homeroom, then in P-E, then after class, every day of the school year. It only stopped when he was sent to prison for rape and attempted 1rst degree murder.

I was 13, 100 lbs, liked video games, playing football with my friends, going hunting or fishing with my family, etc. He was a 16 year old gang member, ripped head to toe, easily 225 lbs, who just so happened to be a (actually pretty bad) running back for our (very bad) football team. So I went to the adults, most at least attempted to talk to the future murderer out of it, but it of course made it worse. The adults had no tools whatsoever to deal with the situation, something that you seem dead set against remedying. Why? Why does an anti-bullying sentiment offend so many ITGs?

I guess you missed the part where I qualified by saying "at the first hint of" and "intervention may be necessary" and "now the kid is seen as"...none of which would have applied in your situation, where TWO YEARS IN (not at the first hint of) and where you obviously needed assistance, and nobody was going to think you were some kind of sissy who couldn't handle the situation on your own. You didn't just need help, you needed police intervention.

I am very much FOR remedying bullying--but I also want to ensure that what is going on is, first of all bullying and not merely "picking on" and not outright abuse and torture (which it was in your case). I also want to ensure that helicopter parents don't swoop in and rescue their precious snowflakes because an ill-natured child called their darling poopy-head, and then guaranteed Snowflake three more years of being called poopy-head and worse because now Snowflake was marked as being a Sissyboy or Sissygirl who went crying to mommy whenever someone was mean to him or her.

Your case is somewhat unique, but I have seen far more of the latter, where badly timed and/or poorly planned "remedies" ended up causing more agony for the kids than merely letting things alone might have. If as you say adults had no tools to deal with the situation it's precisely because ALL bullying has become equal, and there is simply no gradation between a couple of kindergartners calling each other poopy-heads and a six-foot tall linebacker brutalizing a hundred-pound freshman. Clearly the former needs a stern talking-to and the latter needs some time in jail. But nobody is willing to make that call, so the linebacker gets the talking to, and ends his day by bashing your head into a locker room wall.

I'll finish by saying I was bullied in junior high--by junior-high girls, the epitome of evil on earth--at a time when middle-school bullying by females was unrecognized. I mostly survived intact, and two of the girls who bullied me went on to become field hockey teammates in high school, who went to some pains to say they "had my back" in some scuffle between us and another team. It's mostly survivable even without intervention. The key for adults is to keep our own experiences OUT of our interventions and not see all juvenile bullying as incipient attempted murders....or mere instances of poopy-headedness.

As a person who worked in Primary schools for a short period of time there were a few similarities I noticed about children who were bullied.

You have the child who is bullied by former friend due to a fight. This was often short lived and they would become friends again or just move onto other friends.

You then had the child who was constantly bullied and in 90% of the times would fit into one of these two categories

1. Has a special need and those were often aspergers or austism. In this situation I believe that the parents as well as giving them intense early lessons should also give them social lessons. This is because children with these difficulties can lack the human understanding of emotions and from that can seem very rude.

2. The baby. The child who can't laugh at themselves, who has to tell the teacher when anyone's doing anything wrong. The one who cries over everything. Teach your child not to tell all the time. My rule is if someone is being physically hurt you tell other wise you mind your own business. So if Tommy is drawing dicks on the table keep your mouth shut. We also insult each other so she learns to laugh,

You mean that trying to force kids to do what you want by repeatedly violating their rights with metal detectors, locker searches, etc that they can't do anything about because you hold all the power doesn't teach them to resolve their differences via reasonable discussion as equals?

Jim_Callahan:You mean that trying to force kids to do what you want by repeatedly violating their rights with metal detectors, locker searches, etc that they can't do anything about because you hold all the power doesn't teach them to resolve their differences via reasonable discussion as equals?

You don't farking say.

Of course, some schools bring in the biggest bullies of them (with uniforms, guns, dogs, nightsticks and tasers) all to deal with kids fighting.Sends the message "might makes right" that the bullies agree with.School officials are morons.

But we need bullying! How else will kids grow up into successful people if they aren't motivated by the cruelty of their peers to excel and someday return to destroy their lives piece by agonizing piece!? Mark my words, if we end bullying the economy is going to nosedive.

Behavior between children that would be criminal if they were adult should be treated severely - and as criminal.Behavior that would not, should be ignored by adult authorities. Kids must learn to deal with things like name-calling, meanness, clique-ishness, and social cruelty. They should never have to deal with physical force or intimidation, and a very strong, broad ethical line must be drawn between those two sorts of things.Children must develop an sound understanding of when their rights are being violated, and also when they are NOT.

I remember getting bullied mercilessly every day at lunch in Junior High. They never got in an inch of trouble (one teacher seemed to think I was annoying for bringing it up). One day, I was bring my lunch tray back to sit down and took my soda can and lightly bonked one of the bullies on the head with it. The dean chewed me out and I nearly got suspended.

jso2897:Behavior between children that would be criminal if they were adult should be treated severely - and as criminal.Behavior that would not, should be ignored by adult authorities. Kids must learn to deal with things like name-calling, meanness, clique-ishness, and social cruelty. They should never have to deal with physical force or intimidation, and a very strong, broad ethical line must be drawn between those two sorts of things.Children must develop an sound understanding of when their rights are being violated, and also when they are NOT.

And if they choose to deal with it by swallowing the warm end of gun?

Many kids aren't emotionally stable enough to deal with some of these things on their own. Leaving them to do so is setting them up to fail. Painfully.

Schools that tell kids not to fight back have a higher instance of kids being picked on.Totally couldn't see that coming.

How else are you going to raise docile little drones for the corporate triremes?

I get what you're saying, but so often the mentality looks like this:

'Stop making kids into corporate drones, until they do something that annoys me, then those little shiats better learn how to conform!'

Kids are supposed to annoy us. That's part of being a kid. We are the ones with the problem if we're trying to suppress that behavior, not them. We lose out on too many teachable moments because sometimes we just don't want to deal with the chaos and disruption.

If we prevent them from experiencing and making mistakes they lose their ability to adapt. Then they are at the mercy of the bullies.

My brother had a problem with a bully. After about a year of it he finally just went off on him, bloodied up the kid. He got caught by the principal when this happened and was suspended.

My father always taught us to fight our own battles, except in this case he went and had a "talk" with the principal. My brother was no longer suspended after that. I don't know what he said, but while my father was a generally caring and low key individual, you did not want to get on his bad side.

As for me, yeah there was some name calling. Whatever, I can ignore that. The few times it cam to a physical confrontation, I was out on top (or at least it was a draw). I may be quiet, I may be a little chubby, but I do have some muscle to throw around if needs be (living on a farm will do that to you).

Virtuoso80:I remember getting bullied mercilessly every day at lunch in Junior High. They never got in an inch of trouble (one teacher seemed to think I was annoying for bringing it up). One day, I was bring my lunch tray back to sit down and took my soda can and lightly bonked one of the bullies on the head with it. The dean chewed me out and I nearly got suspended.

Sounds familiar. I was bullied a lot in middle school, being a skinny bookworm and all. Teachers and coaches would witness my torment and just wrote it off as boys will be boys. Finally I slugged one of them and the coach pulled me aside and said, "Why do you have to be so mean?" and I got suspended. Never got bullied again though.

What do parents expect though? Hitting your children "euphemistically called spanking" is perfectly acceptable whenever your child does something you don't agree with but so called bullying in school is a travesty. Stop beating your farking kids and maybe they won't think it's acceptable to beat others.

I was a child, sir. I didn't have the ability to articulate just how horrendous my situation was. For all the adults knew, I was telling them, individually, that I was being bullied for the first time, or it just recently started. There was no, and still isn't any, system in place in my area to track such problems. I understand you are conserned about an over-abundance of caution, but I see no harm enforcing the rules you expect on a job site, namely no assault, battery, or physchological torture is acceptable in adult society. (I know, exceptions.....exceptions)

A child is expected to go to school to learn, not be tortured, not even for one day. Once is too much, and it needs to be stopped in it's tracks. If you want to teach a child a lesson how to deal with the real world, teach the monster to be a human, and don't leave the farking children to fend for themselves.

Mugato:Hitting your children "euphemistically called spanking" is perfectly acceptable whenever your child does something you don't agree with but so called bullying in school is a travesty. Stop beating your farking kids and maybe they won't think it's acceptable to beat others.

Great way to threadjack this into a spanking thread...

I got an open palm across my backside a few times when I was young (hey, I learned my lesson, only took a few times). I never bullied anybody. And I am sure there are bullies out there who are bullies because they never got any discipline (no spanking, time outs, grounded, etc...) as well

Gyrfalcon:Your case is somewhat unique, but I have seen far more of the latter, where badly timed and/or poorly planned "remedies" ended up causing more agony for the kids than merely letting things alone might have. If as you say adults had no tools to deal with the situation it's precisely because ALL bullying has become equal, and there is simply no gradation between a couple of kindergartners calling each other poopy-heads and a six-foot tall linebacker brutalizing a hundred-pound freshman. Clearly the former needs a stern talking-to and the latter needs some time in jail. But nobody is willing to make that call, so the linebacker gets the talking to, and ends his day by bashing your head into a locker room wall.

Could you possibly quantify this, in particular? What numbers can you cite, because your opinion seems based on them? This happened in the mid 90's, are you saying it's been "all bullying has become equal" sense before then? I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I don't believe a word of that paragraph. There is nuance allowed, especially from a faculty. I will repeat one more time tho.

There was no, and still is no, program available in Louisiana that focuses on the issue of children torturing each other. Your argument seems to boil down to the opposite being true. You're saying that the anti-bullying initiatives that have not been created have gone too far, and has thus made the adults act ineffectively 15 years ago. Is that about right?

Would you care to quantify, even in a ballpark figure, how big of a problem we have of overreacting in preventing child abuse?

Bullying is hardly gonna end when we've institutionalized it as adults. I'm saying us "wimps" should be allowed to beat up bankers who have been demanding our lunch money for the entirety of our lives.

Moonlightfox:The solution to bullying is parenting. How about teach your kids not to be shiatheads to each other?

The parents are the reason the bullies do what they do. Shiatty, abusive, overly authoritarian parents have kids that crave control over SOMETHING, so they control the pathetic weaklings that are the result of overprotective helicopter parents who don't let their kids toughen up.

Moonfisher:I have my own anti-bullying campaign; I tell my kid to hit back, hit hard, and take the little shiat down. Get that out of the way now, when he's seven and unlikely to get in huge trouble for it and future issues should be few and far between. Standing up to a bully seems to create an invisible badge of confidence that wards others off.

I have taught my daughter how to punch and that she should aim for the bridge of the nose. Break a bully's nose and he'll never get near you again.